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visit. Due to Freddie’s nocturnal habits, he tended to get up very late but I still had to be up and about during normal shopping hours to gather in anything he or the others in the band had specifically requested the night before, anything from a pair of jeans which he’d seen someone wearing or to stock his fridge with a drink someone had introduced him to. I have to emphasise once again, that at this point I was still working for Queen as a whole rather than specifically for Freddie. So there were other calls on my time.
    Because Freddie had been to LA before, he knew of specific items which were more easily available there and by the time we arrived he had made a list of purchases I was to make. The boots, of the boxing variety, he used to wear on stage and white Levi jeans were just two examples. The jeans available in London tended only to be cream.
    Howard Rose was the tour’s North American promoter and agent who worked out of Los Angeles. Apart from management, all bands have arrangements with independent agents and promoters such as Howard who negotiate times, dates and schedules with the owners of the individual concert venues. The requirements of such a huge institution like Queen were vast. It wasn’t merely a question of the four people standing on stage, it was a logistical problem involving upwards of a hundred personnel: the Queen crew plus the crew hired specifically for the day, the stage builders, the lighting riggers, the electricians. The band’s requirements were set out in what was known as a rider, a set of conditions attached to the contract between them and the venue’s promoter. Queen’s rider included the following: a dressing room with sufficient comfortable seats; a full-length mirror; and at least twenty hand towels.
    The food requirements were that before the show a selection of cold meats and salads were to be available and for after the show, a quantity of hot food was to be provided, which generally consisted of savoury finger buffet food to be kept hot by small paraffin heaters beneath the metal serving dishes.
    The drinks section of the rider included four bottles of champagne, two bottles of vodka, a bottle of Jack Daniels and a couple of other types of spirits, two dozen beers and an assortment of soft drinks, including tonic water and mixer drinks, bottled mineral water and fruit juices – and this list was just for the use of the band.
    So, fully victualled, crewed and equipped, the tour was due to kick off in Canada.
    June 27-30: Vancouver, The PNE Coliseum
     
    The band rehearsed on 27th, 28th and 29th and did the show on the 30th. Suffice to say that a great deal of very hard work goes into making any successful tour and it was no different with Queen. Work by the crew before and after a show and obviously by the band during the show. As you will see from the following itinerary, there were a lot of back-to-back shows. If you take into account the amount of travelling involved between venues, more often than not journeys which began immediately after a show, the band walking off stage into a limousine and on to the airport, only to be able to change out of their stage clothes on the plane, you can understand how tired everybody was by the time they got to bed in a new hotel, often in a different state. This might also explain why Freddie had no tourist tendencies. There was just no time.
    I’m not going to bore you with a fully detailed breakdown of everything that happened over the next five months on this massive tour but there will be points in the itinerary when I’ll enlarge on anything which I think will open up further insights into how Freddie worked as a man and also how his mind worked. There are many books detailing the Queen tours. I am not going to attempt to match them although at the end of this personal memoir of this great world tour, I’ll fill you in on some of the more pertinent highlights of other tours in so far as they relate to Freddie.
    July 1: